


young blood, stand and deliver

by felinedetached



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: @ fandom you have failed me, A thing, Character Study, Gen, Have a nice read, Kinda, Relationship Study, Torture, Trauma, almost sexual assult, author hasn't read crooked kingdom yet don't @ her, dead bodies, i guess, i think thats all for tags folks, implied attempted sexual assult?, kind of, so i just found out that the kaz & matthias tag doesnt exist apparently, that was like, there's jesper/kaz if you like squint, uhhh, working title was "a character study (a study in trauma)"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-26 00:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16209227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinedetached/pseuds/felinedetached
Summary: Kaz Brekker doesn’t know what it is, exactly, about human touch that bothers him so much. He doesn’t know why it is that he fainted back in the prison cart—well, he does: it was the contact with so many people, all squished up together like fish in a barrel; like bodies in the Reaper’s Barge—and he doesn’t know why it is that when Inej reaches out, tries to kiss him or tangle his fingers with hers, gloves be damned, he pulls away.a study in Kaz Brekker's trauma and relationships, because I felt like it.





	young blood, stand and deliver

**Author's Note:**

> [raise hell, dorothy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmYyPcEQKU4)

**i. young blood, heaven need a sinner**

Kaz Brekker doesn’t know what it is, exactly, about human touch that bothers him so much. He doesn’t know why it is that he fainted back in the prison cart—well, he does: it was the contact with so many people, all squished up together like fish in a barrel; like bodies in the Reaper’s Barge—and he doesn’t know why it is that when Inej reaches out, tries to kiss him or tangle his fingers with hers, gloves be damned, he pulls away.

(He knows why. He loves her, he does; but not like that. He doesn’t think he _can_ love her like that—doesn’t think he can love _anyone_ like that. Not enough to trust them, not enough for the kind of skin to skin contact that comes with dates and kissing and _sex._ Saints, _sex_.)

He can’t handle physical contact. He can’t handle it, and he knows it; he can’t handle it and _nobody else_ can know it. It’s so easy to use against him, so easy to harm him with—just like relationships and people and emotions.

There are three things he knows:

  1. He can’t handle physical contact, and it is a result of the Reaper’s Barge. It’s a result of Jordie’s death, a result of Pekka Rollins’ manipulations.
  2. He loves Inej. He loves Inej and Jesper, Nina and Matthias and Wylan. He loves them, trusts them with his life and knows they trust him with theirs.
  3. No one else can know this. No one else can know that he’s touch-adverse, that skin to skin contact makes him flinch and cringe and _suffer._ It’s so, so easy to use against him, and the only way he can ensure that it never is, is to ensure that no one ever finds out.



 

 

 

**ii. you can’t raise hell with a saint**

There is a threatening kind of silence that hangs over Ketterdam when Kaz Brekker is out hunting. He knows it, revels in it; glances to where Inej crouches high above him, very carefully _doesn’t_ look to where Jesper perches, watching over them all with eagle eyes and a perfect aim.

It’s comforting, having him watch over them. Kaz knows that with Jesper up on the balustrades, perched on flat rooves or in balconies, there is nothing that can harm them. There is no one with a faster draw than Jesper, no one with sharper eyesight, no one who could even _try_ to contest his dominance in the gunslinging game.

He makes Kaz feel _safe,_ investment or not, and it’s entirely because he trusts Jesper. Trusts Jesper not to put a bullet in his head, trusts Jesper _to_ put a bullet in those who wish the Dregs harm. Trust. It’s a thing he’s both used to and not—people only trust him when they have no other choice, but they trust him nonetheless. He only trusts people when he’s in such a tight spot he’s practically broken under the weight of all he cannot handle.

But with Jesper, it’s different. With Jesper, he doesn’t tell him things, yes; but when has Kaz told anyone anything emotional? When has he told anyone his plans?

Okay, so, maybe that doesn’t illustrate his point very well. Anyway, his point is that he _feels_ like he can tell Jesper things. That doesn’t make him tell Jesper things.

It does, however, for some absurd reason, make Jesper try to talk to _him_ about things.

The heist goes off without a hitch, and he arrives back at the Crow’s Club with his team entirely intact and Jesper walking silently—which is weird—by his side.

“Hey, Kaz,” Jesper says, eventually; quiet and calm and gentle in a way that Kaz isn’t used to associating with people who are talking to him. It doesn’t make sense for him to be talking to Kaz like that, honestly—the heist went off _without a hitch_ , Kaz hasn’t had anything go wrong in _weeks,_ and they’re actually doing more jobs than they were before.

(Though with their reputation—breaking into the _Ice Court_ —that’s unsurprising.)

“Don’t you think you’re working… too much?” Jesper says, and he’s carefully put enough room between him and Kaz that even with his cane, Jesper isn’t within his reach.

“No,” Kaz says shortly, and that’s the end of that. (Or, at least, it would be—but Jesper is Jesper and Jesper is stubborn, kind, a terrible gambler; everything that a barrel rat shouldn’t be; everything that will get a barrel rat killed. But Jesper is also brave, loyal, the best gunslinger in the Barrel and, most of all, under the protection of Kaz Brekker, which makes up for all that in the end.)

“Kaz,” Jesper says, because Jesper’s always bet against the odds, always lost; a terrible gambler in a city where terrible gamblers are eaten alive. “I think you’re working too much.” Jesper doesn’t do anything stupid, like try to rest his hand over Kaz’s on his cane—something Inej would do; something comforting and terrifying all at once (although far, far more of the latter). Instead, he just stands there. He’s carefully out of reach, but close enough to get to Kaz if anything were to happen, and Kaz loves and hates that in equal measure.

“Your cut,” Kaz says, in lieu of replying properly, “is 10,000 _kruge.”_

Jesper pauses, and Kaz knows he’s won. In a game where greed is key, Kaz will always win, because greed bows to no one but him.

 

 

 

**iii. don’t care what your old man say**

Wylan is, surprisingly, far more than Kaz thought he’d ever be. He’s loyal, unsurprisingly. Well-spoken, good at functions and good with pyrotechnics—most of which Kaz could have called as soon as he learnt Wylan’s upbringing—but he’s also illiterate (a problem, but not a major one) and more attached to the six of them than Kaz ever thought he would be.

He is also, just like Jesper, far too kind to be a barrel rat. Far too kind to be bound to Kaz; to be bound to a seventeen-year-old focused on revenge and not much more; bound to a teenager with issues he’s turned into weapons.

As such, Kaz really should have expected this—Wylan’s nervous stance in front of him, hands wringing, etc etc, as he asks if they can talk—even if he didn’t expect the topic of conversation.

“You know,” Wylan says, “I overheard a mercher’s wife and her friends once.” Kaz perks up at this—of course he does, mercher’s wives, when gossiping with friends, often give them the opening they need to crack a mercher’s security system. But then Wylan continues. “She said that her husband asked her to pick between him and her cat. Said that he told her he would not marry her, unless she got rid of the cat.”

Kaz thinks he knows where this is going—maybe—and where it’s going scares him, just a bit. It scares him because Wylan knowing about Inej’s ultimatum scares him, because anyone knowing about his _weakness_ scares him. He’s not ready for that—not yet. “Wylan-“ he says, but Wylan ploughs on regardless.

“She said that her husband beats her, and that she wishes she never got rid of her cat. She told her friends that if anyone asked them to pick between anything and the relationship, they should leave him.” Wylan takes a breath and offers a small, odd, smile. Kaz sits, frozen, his mind whirling a mile a minute. Does Wylan mean— “Of course, the court ladies don’t really have a choice, and I don’t mean that this will happen to you, but it seemed like something you needed to hear.” Wylan waves and walks out the door, leaving Kaz at his desk with a lot to think about.

 

 

 

**iv. no need for a queen affair**

Kaz, of course, goes to Nina. She’s probably the best equipped to deal with something like this—the prostitute who’s never spread her legs for a man; the most desired whore in Ketterdam—and she’s a part of his crew. A _trustworthy_ part of his crew, which makes all the difference. The trustworthy part is, in the end, what makes him go to her.

He finds her as he always does; her back room in the White Rose, tending to client after client before she goes home to Matthias at their room above the Crow’s Club.

“Nina,” he says, tastes glass in his mouth and desperation in his voice. He hates it; hates that he was rubbed so raw by a simple story about a court lady and her cat, by Wylan and his quiet, careful sympathy. He doesn’t seem to have to say anything more—she gestures to the settee in her room, concern writ across her face.

“Kaz,” she says, and _saints_ but there’s concern in her voice, too. He’d apologise to Inej for the blasphemy, but he’s never done that before anyway; even without Wylan’s words ringing in his ears like particularly vicious clock chimes. “What did you need me for?”

“I don’t,” he says, knows that she knows he’s lying. Knows because it’s his job to know; knows because it’s his nature to lie, and she knows that.

“Company?” she asks, watches him as he flinches, just slightly; still rubbed raw and open, his discomfort with the situation bleeding into the air. He’s usually better at hiding it that this; wrapping himself in layers of leather and fabric, ensuring that this weakness can’t be used against him. He’s usually better at this, but this is an open wound being poked at and prodded until it’s red and puffy and bleeding. “Not that kind,” she says, smiles the smile she reserves for the crew. “Just as a friend.”

“Okay,” he hears himself saying; Kaz Rietveld making a surprise reappearance. Vulnerable, kind, trusting, _idiotic_ Kaz Rietveld, the boy from before the bastard of the Barrel. The boy who loved card tricks and wind up toys and his brother, Jordie. The boy who died with Kaz’s kindness when he used his brother’s bloated body as a life raft.

Nina smiles, lets Kaz sit on the opposite couch—as far away from Nina as he can get—and she just talks. She talks through Kaz’s silence, talks about Matthias and her time in the Second Army. She talks passionately, in such a way that means Kaz has nothing to do but listen.

That suits him just fine.

 

 

 

**v. young blood, run like a river**

With Matthias, it’s not about trust. With Matthias, it’s mutual _distrust,_ an agreement born of necessity and common acquaintances, and not much more.

(Kaz carefully does not think of Matthias, desperate, pumping water from Kaz’s lungs with muttered swears falling from his lips.)

With Matthias, it’s everyone else _but_ them; nothing but sarcastic quips and uncomfortably careful silences, in which Kaz is all too aware that Matthias is ex-military, and Matthias, in turn, is all too aware of the rather immoral stance Kaz has on all things.

(Kaz carefully, carefully, doesn’t think of a father general betrayed, carefully doesn’t think of Matthias branded a traitor, branded worthless, branded as the lowest a _drüskelle_ can be—one who fraternises with grisha, with _drüsje_ —for them.)

“Kaz,” Matthias says, curt, simple. Kaz nods back, makes to keep walking, but then Matthias clears his throat. “I don’t know what it is you suffer,” he says, unbearably kindly, “but know that you are not alone.”

Kaz nods again, throat tight, once again feeling flayed open and raw; like he’s bleeding out onto the muck-coated cobblestones of the Barrel.

All it takes are a few words.

He walks on.

 

 

 

**vi. young blood, heaven hate a sinner**

Inej is the last person he wants to see right now, but here she is. Perched in his office window, feeding seeds to the crows. When he walks in, her eyes drop straight to his gloves.

Wylan’s words ring through Kaz’s head again— _she told her friends that if anyone asked them to pick between anything and the relationship, they should leave him_ —and he tilts his chin up, challenges her. It feels odd to do so; odd to feel off balance, out of control. It feels odd to be the one challenging again, instead of the one being challenged and putting the challengers down hard.

“Please?” she says, careful and kind, pleading, but not pushing. Not really. Not yet. “Trust me, Kaz.”

He does trust her. He really does, but he can’t trust her with this. Kaz doesn’t think he can trust _anyone_ than this.

“It’s nothing personal,” he says, keeps himself cool, professional, detached. “Don’t take it as such.”

“Kaz,” Inej says, and there’s desperation in there; the same kind of broken-glass desperation he’d heard in his own voice when he went to Nina earlier. He just sits at his desk, leans his cane up against it, folds his hands on top of it, one on top of the other. Still gloved.

“Did you need something?” he asks. Inej’s face twists at that, pulls on the strings of a heart he’d long thought dead.

Then she leaves. Vanishes back out the window, the same way she’d come in. Kaz lets himself relax, lets himself drop his head onto his desk with a heavy thunk and sigh, tired and sad and just a little heartbroken.

 

 

 

**vii. young blood, gotta pull the trigger**

It’s interesting. Whenever Kaz gets kidnapped—which is rare, in as of itself—they never take his gloves off. No one with the power to take him on is actually all that interested in what the bastard of the Barrel hides under his gloves, rumours be damned.

But this time—this time, when Kaz wakes up from whatever they’d used to drug them, he wakes up with his hands uncomfortably cold and brushing together, skin to skin. That, more than anything, is what makes him raise his head, look around through the fog that still clouds his brain just slightly.

“Looking for these?” someone asks, dangling his gloves in front of him. He barely restrains his flinch, hoping that the slight twitch either goes unnoticed or is interpreted as something else. Kaz is, of course, not that lucky. “Aw,” the man speaks again, mocking, “does Dirtyhands want his gloves back?”

Kaz raises an eyebrow in an entirely unimpressed manner, and says, “You’re a bit childish for a gang member, aren’t you?”

The man cackles a laugh, grabs Kaz’s chin to tilt his face up. It takes everything within him to not flinch away; everything within him to contain that movement into an easily written off movement. “Ain’t you a little young to be a gang leader?” He replies, and Kaz would incline his head in acknowledgement if he had any range of movement.

“Age doesn’t mean anything in the Barrel,” Kaz says, quiet. He’s carefully, silently working at his ropes now that his mind is working again, less clouded by drugs and panic.

“I always wondered why you wear gloves,” the man says in lieu of responding. “I wonder even more now—your hands aren’t anything special.” He tilts his head to the side, a scrutinisation that is wholly uncomfortable. “Now, I wonder: is Kaz Brekker—Dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel— _scared_ or something?”

It’s a hit uncomfortably close to home, and Kaz can’t quite restrain his flinch in time. He’s almost free of his ropes though, just a little bit longer—

The man laughs again, cruel and mocking and delighted all at once. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re scared of something. What is it, I wonder?” He muses, leaning in close again, grabbing onto Kaz’s chin and dragging a thumb across his jaw. He flinches again, more violently this time, and the man’s laughter somehow gets more delighted. “Skin to skin contact?” He demands, smile bright and blinding and terrifying.

“Oh, Brekker,” he breathes, leaning in so close that Kaz can feel the man’s breath on his lips. “That’s pathetic.” He smiles again, eyes glinting in a way that’s utterly terrifying with the knowledge that this man now has; holds over him. He leans in, closer, until his lips are brushing Kaz’s ear, until panic is rising hot and heavy and crushing in Kaz’s chest, and he whispers, “I’m going to have so much fun with you.”

Then there’s a gunshot. A single shot, and the mans body is a deadweight resting on top of Kaz. He can feel panic clawing its way into his throat; can see the corners of his vision slowly darkening as he gasps for air; but then there’s suddenly fresh air again. There’s suddenly a freeing openness; the man’s weight gone from his body—tossed to the side.

“Kaz?” Jesper’s voice says, even as Kaz registers that _no one’s touching him,_ no one’s too close or crowding him. He looks up, works his hands out of the last of the knots, to see his team crouched around him. They’re all careful, an arm’s length away and making sure they don’t touch him. “It’s okay,” he hears Jesper say as he briskly pieces himself back together.

“Oh, good,” he says, “you found me.” He holds his hand out for his gloves, and Nina drops them into his waiting palm, careful not to touch him. Pulling them on feels like becoming himself again, and he stands, shrugs his shoulders slightly to get rid of the slight twinge that comes with being tied up.

“Of course we did!” Wylan says, almost _angry_ at the idea that they wouldn’t. “You’re our friend!”

“There are no friends in the Barrel,” Kaz replies, but he doesn’t think he believes it anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> inej’s ultimatium rubbed me badly the wrong way, as a victim of emotional abuse. with kaz’s trauma, anyone who would just demand he get over trauma like that doesn’t deserve him and so i've addressed this in the fic. i'm sorry if it upset anyone, but that's just how i feel about the pairing.
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> you can ask me for a more in-depth description of why i'm not a big fan of inej/kaz on my [tumblr](https://felinedetached.tumblr.com/), if you'd like.
> 
> also, like, the court lady thing? sound advice. if anyone tells you to pick between a cat or a dog and your relationship with that person, you should always pick the cat or dog.


End file.
